Exploration of Fecal Indicator Bacteria data sources in Tampa Bay watersheds

Prepared for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program

Author
Affiliation

Kim Cressman

Published

February 14, 2024

Modified

February 14, 2024

Overview

This document was compiled in order to explore spatial and temporal coverage of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) data in the Tampa Bay watershed, and determine which data sources and indicators are appropriate for future report card development. The indicator with the most up-to-date information, across all bay segments, is Enterococcus. The primary organizations collecting FIB data are the Counties, and through this exploration, additional providers with substantial datasets have also become apparent (e.g. Department of Health, Department of Environmental Protection, and some of the Cities).

A secondary goal of this exploration was to compare data downloaded via tbeptools::import_readwqp(), a programmatic interface to the Water Quality Portal’s API, to that downloaded directly from the Water Quality Portal. Data coverage is quite similar from both sources, though I recommend adding some key organizations to the tbeptools function. At least one stakeholder has experienced issues getting incomplete data through the tbeptools/API route. I have not used this function extensively - it did not give me problems while working up this report, but they could still happen in the future. The tables of sample timing and locations provided below can provide a baseline for future downloads, to make sure the number of stations and years provided in a download match closely.

The tables and figures below are identical for both download sources. All graphics and maps are interactive; hovering or clicking on an area will call up additional information.

Source code and data for this document can be found in the GitHub repository.

1. Website download

FIB Sampling points

The Water Quality Portal was queried on 1/29/2024. Query specifications were for results from microbiological sampling in the 5 TBEP counties from 1995-2022, and to only include stations with at least 10 sampling events.

The downloaded .csv file was 167MB, and so is not in the github repository for this project. A zipped version is available via TBEP’s google drive. The file was pre-processed using R/WQP_preprocessing.R to:

  • filter out Groundwater samples to only retain Surface Water or unlabeled sources.
  • retain only sample types Fecal Coliform, Total Coliform, Enterococcus, and E. coli (eliminating the DNA-based sample types that were contained in the file). Total Coliform is in the processed data frame but has not been included in this exploration.
  • remove the majority of columns.

Temporal Heatmaps

For 2 & 3M Classes, within the TBEP boundaries, only.

By Bay Segment

By Provider

Enterococcus: Provider x BaySeg

Maps

All Stations vs. Estuarine/Marine Only

Estuarine/Marine means that Class in the WBID layer was either 2 or 3M. This map also contains layers for bay segments and wbids.

Providers, Estuarine/Marine Only

Timing of Enterococcus sampling, Estuarine/Marine only

Tabular Summaries

The following tables only include information about Estuarine/Marine sampling stations; Classes 2 or 3M in the WBID shapefile.

By Bay Segment

Estuarine and Marine FIB Information
Fecal Coliform
Enterococcus
E. coli
Bay Segment # Providers # Stations Years # Providers # Stations Years # Providers # Stations Years
Boca Ciega Bay 5 42 2000- 2019 4 21 2000- 2022 3 9 2015- 2022
Lower Tampa Bay 4 55 1999- 2022 3 23 2000- 2022 1 1 2018- 2022
Terra Ceia Bay 1 3 2009- 2017 - - - - - -
Old Tampa Bay 4 80 1999- 2022 4 70 2000- 2022 3 14 2001- 2022
Hillsborough Bay 3 67 1999- 2022 3 56 2000- 2022 1 19 2001- 2022
Middle Tampa Bay 6 59 1999- 2022 6 45 2000- 2022 2 8 2001- 2022
Manatee River 2 6 1996- 2021 2 6 2013- 2022 1 5 2018- 2022

By Provider

Estuarine and Marine FIB Information by Provider
Fecal Coliform
Enterococcus
E. coli
Bay Segment / Provider # Stations Years # Stations Years # Stations Years
Boca Ciega Bay
City of St Petersburg 5 2013- 2019 8 2013- 2021 6 2016- 2021
Division of Environmental Health, Bureau of Water Programs 4 2000- 2011 4 2000- 2022 - -
FL Dept. Environmental Protection, Southwest District 6 2004- 2010 3 2017- 2022 1 2017- 2018
Florida Department of Environmental Protection 23 2009- 2017 - - - -
Pinellas County Dept. of Environmental Management 4 2009- 2016 6 2009- 2022 2 2015- 2022
Hillsborough Bay
Division of Environmental Health, Bureau of Water Programs 1 2000- 2011 1 2000- 2022 - -
Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County 51 1999- 2022 52 2001- 2022 19 2001- 2022
FL Dept. Environmental Protection, Southwest District 15 2006- 2011 3 2017- 2022 - -
Lower Tampa Bay
Division of Environmental Health, Bureau of Water Programs 2 2000- 2011 2 2000- 2022 - -
Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County 20 1999- 2022 20 2001- 2022 - -
Florida Department of Environmental Protection 32 2009- 2017 - - - -
Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources Department (Florida) 1 2005- 2021 1 2013- 2017 1 2018- 2022
Manatee River
FL Dept. Environmental Protection, Southwest District 1 2002- 2008 1 2017- 2022 - -
Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources Department (Florida) 5 1996- 2021 5 2013- 2017 5 2018- 2022
Middle Tampa Bay
City of St Petersburg 2 2013- 2019 3 2013- 2021 2 2016- 2016
Division of Environmental Health, Bureau of Water Programs 3 2000- 2011 3 2000- 2022 - -
Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County 35 1999- 2022 35 2001- 2022 6 2001- 2022
FL Dept. Environmental Protection, Southwest District 16 2005- 2011 1 2018- 2022 - -
Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources Department (Florida) 1 2011- 2014 1 2013- 2014 - -
Pinellas County Dept. of Environmental Management 2 2009- 2012 2 2009- 2012 - -
Old Tampa Bay
Division of Environmental Health, Bureau of Water Programs 9 2000- 2011 9 2000- 2022 - -
Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County 50 1999- 2022 51 2001- 2022 8 2001- 2022
FL Dept. Environmental Protection, Southwest District 18 2005- 2022 5 2017- 2022 1 2018- 2018
Pinellas County Dept. of Environmental Management 3 2009- 2016 5 2009- 2022 5 2015- 2022
Terra Ceia Bay
Florida Department of Environmental Protection 3 2009- 2017 - - - -


2. read_importwqp download

FIB Sampling points

Once the majority of code below was built out, another version of data was downloaded via the tbeptools::read_importwqp() function. All valid organization IDs recognized by the function at the time (2/12/2024) were included: FL Department of Health (21FLDOH_WQX), Hillsborough County (21FLHILL_WQX), Manatee County (21FLMANA_WQX), Pasco County (21FLPASCO_WQX), Pinellas County (21FLPDEM_WQX), and Polk County (21FLPOLK_WQX).

This download was performed via the R/tbeptools_preprocessing.R script and saved as data-WQP/tbeptools_importwqp.rds (available in the github repository).

Temporal Heatmaps

For 2 & 3M Classes, within the TBEP boundaries, only.

By Bay Segment

By Provider

Enterococcus: Provider x BaySeg

Maps

All Stations vs. Estuarine/Marine Only

Estuarine/Marine means that Class in the WBID layer was either 2 or 3M. This map also contains layers for bay segments and wbids.

Providers, Estuarine/Marine Only

Timing of Enterococcus sampling, Estuarine/Marine only

Tabular Summaries

The following tables only include information about Estuarine/Marine sampling stations; Classes 2 or 3M in the WBID shapefile.

By Bay Segment

Estuarine and Marine FIB Information
Fecal Coliform
Enterococcus
E. coli
Bay Segment # Providers # Stations Years # Providers # Stations Years # Providers # Stations Years
Old Tampa Bay 3 65 1999- 2023 3 86 2000- 2023 2 13 2001- 2023
Middle Tampa Bay 4 43 1999- 2023 4 47 2000- 2023 1 6 2001- 2023
Boca Ciega Bay 2 12 2000- 2016 2 80 2000- 2022 1 10 2015- 2019
Lower Tampa Bay 3 25 1999- 2023 4 25 2000- 2023 1 1 2018- 2022
Hillsborough Bay 2 52 1999- 2023 2 53 2000- 2023 1 19 2001- 2023
Manatee River 1 5 1996- 2021 1 5 2013- 2017 1 5 2018- 2022

By Provider

Estuarine and Marine FIB Information by Provider
Fecal Coliform
Enterococcus
E. coli
Bay Segment / Provider # Stations Years # Stations Years # Stations Years
Boca Ciega Bay
Department of Health 4 2000- 2011 4 2000- 2022 - -
Pinellas County 8 2009- 2016 76 2009- 2022 10 2015- 2019
Hillsborough Bay
Department of Health 1 2000- 2011 1 2000- 2022 - -
Hillsborough County 51 1999- 2023 52 2001- 2023 19 2001- 2023
Lower Tampa Bay
Department of Health 2 2000- 2011 2 2000- 2022 - -
Hillsborough County 21 1999- 2023 21 2001- 2023 - -
Manatee County 2 2003- 2021 1 2013- 2017 1 2018- 2022
Pinellas County - - 1 2017- 2017 - -
Manatee River
Manatee County 5 1996- 2021 5 2013- 2017 5 2018- 2022
Middle Tampa Bay
Department of Health 3 2000- 2011 3 2000- 2022 - -
Hillsborough County 37 1999- 2023 37 2001- 2023 6 2001- 2023
Manatee County 1 2011- 2014 1 2013- 2014 - -
Pinellas County 2 2009- 2012 6 2009- 2017 - -
Old Tampa Bay
Department of Health 9 2000- 2011 9 2000- 2022 - -
Hillsborough County 50 1999- 2023 51 2001- 2023 8 2001- 2023
Pinellas County 6 2009- 2016 26 2009- 2022 5 2015- 2022

3. Comparison of downloads

Map of Enterococcus sampling stations by download method

As with most maps above, only looking at waters in 2 and 3M classes.

Most of the stations appeared in both downloads, because the bulk of the stations are sampled by organizations that were already written into tbeptools::read_importwqp().

Stations in read_importwqp download but not website download:

  • Stations sampled by Pinellas County. The website download was limited to stations that were sampled at least 10 times, so the stratified random sampling setup of Pinellas County did not yield stations. These stations are certainly worth considering in a report card, as they go back to 2009.

Stations in website download but not read_importwqp download:

  • 10 stations sampled by the City of St. Petersburg, OrgID 21FLCOSP_WQX - primarily in the Boca Ciega Bay segment. Data in the WQP spanned the range or 2016 or 2017 until 2021.
  • 13 stations sampled by the FL Department of Environmental Protection, Southwest District, OrgID 21FLTPA_WQX. There are 1-5 of these in each major bay segment. Sampling ended for some by 2017, but others were current through 2022.

4. Recommendations

Based on this exploration of FIB data availability, I recommend:

  1. Use Enterococcus as the fecal indicator of choice in estuarine report cards. The temporal coverage for this indicator is almost universally more recent than for fecal coliform.
  2. Add 21FLCOSP_WQX and 21FLTPA_WQX as valid entries for org in tbeptools::read_importwqp().